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China Media Bulletin CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN A biweekly update of press freedom and censorship news related to the People’s Republic of China Issue 88: June 13, 2013 Headlines Party outlets reject constitutionalism amid ideological clampdown Online censors seen testing new tactics before Tiananmen anniversary Officials’ evolving responses to pollution protests play out online and off Little progress on cybersecurity, human rights at Obama-Xi summit Chinese diplomats harass French journalist, TV station after Tibet report PHOTO OF THE WEEK: FORBIDDEN FRUIT Credit: Offbeat China BROADCAST / PRINT MEDIA NEWS Party outlets reject constitutionalism amid ideological clampdown In recent weeks, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media outlets have pushed back against rising calls for genuine adherence to China’s constitution, which includes nominal guarantees of civil liberties like freedom of speech but is subordinated to party dictates in practice (see CMB No. 79). A May 21 editorial in the journal Red Flag Manuscript argued that constitutionalism is a feature of “capitalism and bourgeoisie dictatorship.” The party-owned newspaper Global Times also asserted that the concept would impede China’s development. On May 29, an article in the journal Party Construction claimed that constitutionalism would mean abolishing the CCP’s leadership role and overthrowing the “socialist regime.” Meanwhile, after reports emerged in early May that the CCP had issued a directive banning university classroom discussion on seven topics (see CMB No. 87), including civil liberties and constitutionalism, the Ministry of Education published a statement on May 27 ordering all universities to improve ideological training for young teachers. An unidentified ministry official cited in a May 28 article by the official Xinhua news agency explained that teachers below the age of 40 account for 60 percent of all teaching staff in Chinese universities, and that some lack discipline and ideological rigor. China analyst Bill Bishop has argued that the fresh emphasis on ideological controls is part of a broader effort by the new CCP leadership to brace the regime ahead of badly needed economic reforms. DW News 5/30/2013 (in Chinese): Central propaganda department: To carry out constitutionalism is to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party leadership and Chinese socialist government Washington Post 6/3/2013: China’s constitution debate hits a sensitive nerve Xinhua 5/28/2013: Universities urged to enhance ideological work for young teachers New York Times 5/28/2013: Tamping down expectations on China’s growth Journalists assaulted by officials in Shaanxi Province Journalists were attacked in three separate incidents in Shaanxi Province on May 29 and 30. The first assault occurred on May 29, after a journalist identified as Feng, from the newspaper Shaanxi Science and Technology Views, refused to accept a bribe to curb his investigation of an illegal land eviction in Yulin City, Yuyang District. Two men with a knife allegedly attacked Feng, who incurred several injuries, during a meeting with the deputy minister of the local propaganda department. On May 30, two journalists from New West magazine were reportedly attacked by several officers and the director of the Department of Land and Resources as they investigated an illegal gold-mining operation in Weinan City. One of the journalists was reportedly punched in the head by the director, who told the pair, “Do we have to report to media about what are we doing? We have rights not to answer your questions. I could make you die today.” In a third incident, two television journalists were allegedly attacked by the headmaster and deputy headmaster of a vocational school while they were www.freedomhouse.org investigating a student complaint. Physical assaults against journalists have been increasing in recent years, but they often involve unidentified attackers whose connections to the authorities are suspected rather than overt. The transparent participation of officials in some of the recent incidents is an indication of the impunity that generally prevails after such assaults. IFJ 6/3/2013: IFJ condemns series of attacks on journalists in Shaanxi Province Filmmaker, Falun Gong adherents detained for documenting torture Du Bin, a Chinese journalist who had previously worked as a freelance photographer for the New York Times, was detained in Beijing on May 31 for “disturbing public order.” He was taken from his apartment by more than 10 police officers. Du had recently published a book in Hong Kong on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and released a documentary film featuring over a dozen former inmates of the notorious Masanjia reeducation-through-labor camp. The women describe gruesome torture and sexual abuse, with some methods even more severe than those covered in a hard-hitting investigative report by Lens Magazine in April (see CMB No. 87). According to prominent Beijing- based activist Hu Jia, the filmmaker was being held at a detention center in Beijing’s Fengtai district, but Du’s sister reported that as of June 11 the family had not been formally notified of his whereabouts. Separately, on June 4, the official Xinhua news agency reported that 16 adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement were detained at a residence in Qingdao, Shandong Province, in early May. The agency said they were being held for producing photos depicting reenacted scenes of torture with the intent of posting them on the internet. The article stated that those arrested had red-colored fluids on their bodies, quoting one participant as attesting that the images showed “what it is like in prison.” The article was unusual for its departure from Chinese state media’s general taboo on discussing Falun Gong or the human rights abuses suffered by its practitioners. It may have been an effort to discredit the reports of torture suffered by Falun Gong adherents in camps such as Masanjia. Xinhua identified the leader of the detained individuals as Lu Xueqin. According to the 2009 report of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China and Chinese-language overseas websites, Lu had been permanently paralyzed after a severe beating by Qingdao police in March of that year, indicating that those arrested in the raid included genuine torture survivors. South China Morning Post 6/11/2013: Independent filmmaker Du Bin disappears in Beijing Radio Free Asia 6/11/2013: Masanjia filmmaker held in Beijing over ‘illegal publishing’ YouTube 5/4/2013: Above the Ghosts’ Heads: The women of Masanjia labor camp Xinhua 6/4/2013: 16 Falun Gong practitioners arrested CECC 10/1/2009: Annual Report 2009 Secret China 3/9/2009 (in Chinese): Falun Gong practitioners to be tried in Qingdao, Lu Xueqin paralyzed after torture www.freedomhouse.org NEW MEDIA / TECHNOLOGY NEWS Online censors seen testing new tactics before Tiananmen anniversary In what has become an annual ritual, Chinese internet portals and websites stepped up censorship in the days surrounding the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, though with some slight changes this year. On the eve of the anniversary, the blog GreatFire.org reported that the popular microblogging platform Sina Weibo was apparently experimenting with a new approach to censoring relevant content posted by its users. For several days beginning on May 31, search queries for politically sensitive terms yielded either a standard error message or seemingly “harmless” results about unrelated issues or other historical events that took place on Tiananmen Square. There was no message indicating to users that certain results were being omitted, meaning the censorship was essentially invisible. GreatFire.org offered an impressive follow-up analysis of the implications of this method if it were to be fully adopted in the future (see link below). However, beginning on June 3, the relevant searches once again produced the earlier message: “Results cannot be displayed due to regulations.” As in past years, according to China Digital Times, blocked search terms included oblique references to June 4 such as “35” (as in “May 35”) or “TAM” (for “Tiananmen”). More mundane words like “today” and “tomorrow” were also blocked, as was the candle emoticon. Some new terms were added to this year’s censored list, including “big yellow duck,” a reference to a popular doctored version of the famous Tiananmen “Tank Man” photograph in which the column of tanks halted by a single civilian are replaced by four giant rubber ducks. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia was reportedly inaccessible, though its unencrypted Chinese-language version with missing information about various sensitive topics was still available. After activists called for people to commemorate the anniversary by wearing black, searches for the term “black shirt” were blocked. According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, authorities around the country restricted the movements of known activists and blocked entrances to cemeteries, while Gu Yimin, a Jiangsu-based online activist, was detained on charges of “incitement to subvert state power,” after he reportedly refused to delete a photo of June 4 from his account on Tencent QQ. Despite the censorship efforts, many prominent Weibo users commemorated the anniversary by taking a 24-hour break from posting, while others referenced the crackdown before their posts were scrubbed by censors. “Don’t worry about forgetfulness—at least the Sina censors remember,” wrote prominent film director Jia
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